


Let No Man Bring Me Harm

by scarletalphabet



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletalphabet/pseuds/scarletalphabet
Summary: Alex, who’s been avoiding Maggie ever since the embarrassing kiss incident, finally lands a case with the NCPD that knocks her flat on her back, forcing her to work with someone whose feelings she’d so clearly misjudged.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Since I updated my [writing prompt generator app](http://feedthebunny.herokuapp.com) the other day, I figured it’s a great reason to get back into writing. This comes out of a prompt from there, which was the first line of dialogue that starts this whole weird thing. Gave it a quick once over in a rush to get it up before tonight's episode, so hopefully there are no glaring errors.
> 
> Word of warning: don't google image search the catalog at work or school. Pretty NSFW.

“Geez, it looks like someone slaughtered an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog!” a familiar voice exclaimed from around the corner. 

Fuck. The police had beaten them here. Alex felt a sharp twinge of fear in her gut, threatening to tie her insides in knots. “Ridiculous,” she muttered, slowing her pace down to a glacial walk. “She’s not someone to fear.”

“What did you say?” Hank asked, stopping to peer inquisitively at her.

If Alex had been in any kind of normal mood she would have been tempted to laugh at his resemblance to a confused puppy, head cocked to the side and all. She shook her head and gave him a wide grin. “Oh I was just asking if we could stop here,” she told him. She knelt down and fiddled with one bootlace. “I felt the lace coming undone and I didn’t want it to drag through whatever scene of slaughter Detective Sawyer was shouting about.” She deftly undid the lace, hoping that her right leg blocked the view enough to prevent Hank from calling bullshit. Tying the lace back up again she gave it an emphatic tug to show that it wasn’t going to come undone again any time soon. “All set,” she said, springing back up.

“By all means,” Hank said, gesturing for her to precede him around the corner.

Alex bit the inside of her lip, knowing that Hank had probably seen right through her flimsy charade, but thankful that he had chosen to pretend otherwise. She strode around the corner, only to stop short at the sight. A trail of blood fanned out from an elevated storage unit, falling down in a grisly waterfall to collect in an already congealing pool on the paved ground. Heaps of shredded fabric lay on the ground, blues and grays and browns soaked through with a dark red. A plaid shirt seemed to have escaped the slaughter mostly unscathed, lying to one side with a single cuff dangerously close to pulling itself into the mess. Alex’s brow furrowed in confusion. What seemed strangely missing from it all was any body part that she could see. Perhaps there was a skull buried under one of the piles of fabric, or an alien sternal spike lost amid the rest, but something didn’t quite add up.

“Agents,” Sawyer called, looking up from where she was crouched to examine a splattered boot. “What brings you here?”

“Detective Sawyer,” Hank replied, taking a break from scanning the scene to look her in the eyes and give her a firm nod of greeting. “We received a tip about suspicious activity out here but I can see the police department has it well in hand. If you don’t mind we’d like to stick around until we all understand a little more about what happened here. It’ll be refreshing to see a crime scene through different eyes.”

Alex had to hold back a snort at that. Hank had recovered quickly thanks to the blood transfusion, but he hadn’t yet been cleared to resume more shapeshifting than his necessary Hank deception required. Hank’s throat-clearing cough told her she hadn’t been quite successful at hiding her amusement.

Sawyer, unaware of the exchange, replied, “It will be my pleasure I’m sure. Should I fill you in on what we know so far? We haven’t learned much yet.”

Hank strode over to Sawyer, leaving Alex behind, frozen at Sawyer’s words and the entirely unwelcome thrill they sent through her. “Jesus Christ, Danvers,” she mumbled, distracting herself by crouching down next to a dumpster to examine the mess nearest her. “Get yourself together.” There’s a time and a place to be turned on by someone who’s not interested in you, and a crime scene definitely was not the place. She took out a pair of gloves and snapped them on, attempting to jolt herself back to reality through the force of her self-disgust. The buzz of Hank and Sawyer (Maggie?) faded as she prodded at the nearest debris pile. The blood seemed thicker than usual, moving with all the ease of molasses, but no one could mistake that metallic smell for anything other than blood. The wind picked up, carrying the full smell of the scene right to Alex’s nostrils. Yes, that was definitely and unmistakably blood.

As the noise of the wind subsided it revealed a quieter rustle of paper from the dumpster she was balancing against. She inched back clear of the congealing pool and reached down, fishing one arm underneath the dumpster until it caught on a bundle of paper. Drawing it out she noticed that it was a magazine or catalog of some sort. When she flipped it over she saw the title: A&F Quarterly. “Sawyer,” she called. “Weren’t you saying something about Abercrombie & Fitch earlier?” Sawyer it would be. Last names were safest. Last names meant work, meant throwing herself fully into her job to the exclusion of anything or anyone else but her family. That was something she was good at.

The noise of conversation abruptly stopped as Alex turned to see Sawyer walking over to her. “Sorry if I interrupted anything,” she said, standing up and holding out the magazine as her excuse. “Thought you might want to see this.” She carefully flicked through the pages, noting spots where it had faded with age. “Haven’t seen anything that stands out yet though.”

“Well that’s a coincidence,” Sawyer said with an amused snort. “I was going on the basis of the clueless preppy look to the clothes. I didn’t think this was actually the last gasp of a dying brand.”

Alex flicked through to the next page and almost dropped the magazine. Two women were standing at the edge of a river, posed as if they had just stepped off a lawn badminton court. While perhaps a bit unusual, she could ignore the woman in khakis and a white bikini top with her arms around the waist of the woman in front of her. It was that woman who almost made Alex gasp aloud. She was wearing nothing but jean shorts and two strategically placed shuttlecocks. Her tousled hair and lack of badminton racket practically screamed that they had been doing something five minutes before that did not involve playing badminton. Alex’s rational brain desperately scrabbled to find words to say something relevant, but all she could think about was how Maggie was standing behind her, peering down at the same image. She couldn’t blame her for wanting to avoid standing in the muck, and if it was anyone else she’d consider it a reasonable distance apart, but she could swear she felt Maggie’s body heat rise in response.

Fucking fucking fuckity fuck. Not Maggie, Sawyer. Stick to Sawyer. Ugh, poor choice of words. Alex closed her eyes and exhaled slowly in an effort to reel herself back in. She was an adult and dammit she would act like one. “So I don’t know if it’s actually a catalog,” she managed at last, flicking through a few more pages before flipping it shut, “But it was under the dumpster right here so it might be relevant. That was never really my scene as a teenager so I’m afraid I’ll be little help on that angle.”

“Carter,” Maggie called, beckoning a tech over. “Can you bag this please?” She stepped away to give Alex room to slip the magazine into the evidence bag and let the silence stretch out as Carter carried it back to the van. Once he was gone she looked at Alex and added with a smile, “Either way Danvers, I appreciate your perspective.”

Alex detected an unusually soft note in her voice that threatened to reignite the cinders of hope that she hadn’t yet managed to stamp out.

“Danvers!” Hank called, breaking that train of thought. He waved her over with his phone. “Just got a call from HQ. Apparently they apprehended a suspect they think has something to do with this and want us back there to question him.”

Alex spun around, grateful for both the way out and the possibility of a swift conclusion to this case. As she stepped towards Hank she had a split second to register the slick ground before her feet flew out from under her and she crashed to the ground in a heap. A sharp pain shot through the shoulder that she’d landed on, causing her to bite her lip to stop yelping in pain. 

“Alex!” Sawyer called in alarm, reaching down to her. “Shit, are you okay? Well of course you’re not okay but...well you are but...can I help?”

Alex wanted to snipe back that no, of course she wasn’t okay. Her shoulder hurt like a bitch, and, according to a glance down at a damp spot on her side, she’d managed to fall into the bloody mess. As if her life hadn’t been embarrassing enough lately. She took a deep breath to calm her reflex to cover up the awkwardness with a grumpy response. She sat up carefully, keen to avoid both further awkwardness and putting weight on her right side. “At least I didn’t hit my head,” she replied, managing a smile for show.

“Are you okay to stand up, Danvers?” Hank asked, reaching an arm down to her good side. 

“Thanks,” she said, smiling more genuinely this time as she took his arm to get up.

“Let’s get you back to HQ to get cleaned up and get that shoulder checked out,” he told her, concern still clear in his voice despite her apparent mobility.

Alex couldn’t stop a whiny groan from escaping. As much as she wanted a hot shower and a clean shirt, she did not look forward to the inevitable barrage of questions from colleagues and onlookers on her forced march through the DEO to the infirmary. Not to mention Kara’s whirlwind of concern over the blood on her shirt, despite knowing that even Alex wouldn’t be that nonchalant if blood was pouring out of her side.

“Fair enough,” Hank declared, giving in quickly as he knew from experience that getting Alex to see a doctor in a non-life threatening situation was about as easy as getting a toddler to eat their broccoli. “But I don’t want to see you in tomorrow, and I want you to get that shoulder checked out before going back into the field. And I don’t want to hear from them that you didn’t follow proper protocol for exposure to bodily fluids, especially from an unknown origin.”

Alex wondered how easily she could convince Winn to try and build an invisibility cloak so she could sneak back into work. It probably would take no more than asking him, but she had too much respect for Hank to go against a reasonable request. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I will be sure to get checked out before I come back to work.” The DEO had issued portable kits specially designed for testing against known and possible alien substances, but the NCPD didn’t need to know that. They also didn’t need to know that they were the subject of much internal laughter over their name after Mon-El had called the UAC kits “whackits”.

“I’ll drop you off on my way back,” Hank told her, waving her back the way they had come.

“I’ve got a spare shirt in my trunk if you want to get out of that sooner,” Sawyer blurted out. “I-I just mean I’ve been there. I don’t think anyone wants to sit around in any kind of muck longer than necessary.”

Was it just her imagination or had Sawyer sounded almost...nervous? Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who had been shaken up lately. Alex stretched her arms out, feeling the shirt reluctantly slurp away from her side. Well awkwardness be damned. “That would be great, thanks,” she said. “Probably best for protocol too.” 

Sawyer came back a few minutes later holding a red shirt. “Sorry, it’s my workout shirt,” she said as she handed it over.

“Any port in a storm,” Alex responded, letting it unfold to read the words ‘Chicks dig diamonds’ hovering over a baseball field. “A baseball fan, huh?” she teased with a grin. “It’s a shame we don’t have a team worth speaking of.”

“You’re telling me,” Sawyer said with a derisive snort. “It would help if they didn’t have a revolving door of coaching staff that never seems interested in encouraging the players to do anything other than swing for the fences. A little small ball wouldn’t kill them.”

“True,” Alex echoed. She smiled as she recalled one of her favorite moments from last season. “Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good walk-off long bomb to straightaway center.” Her smile turned into a wince of pain as her shoulder decided that even holding up a shirt was a bit too much heavy lifting. “Let me just put this on and we can leave,” she said, the rising dull throbbing in her shoulder driving her need to get home where she could be a grump in peace.

“Right,” Hank stated. “I will make sure you have your privacy.” She caught what she could have sworn was a hint of an awkward nod as he stepped away and turned around.

Alex hadn’t even noticed Sawyer’s delayed response as she tried to quickly pull her shirt over her head. She managed to lift it up a few inches before it dropped back down. There was no way she could do that with her shoulder barking like that. Worst of all it was her own damn fault. “A little help please,” she called. She shot Sawyer a pointed look, realizing that she was just standing there frozen. “Oh come on,” she protested in a near growl. “Seriously, I’m wearing a sports bra and that’s more than most of the models in that catalog were wearing.”

“Sorry,” Sawyer replied, hurriedly moving to help Alex.

Alex exhaled sharply as they succeeded in getting her injured arm through the sleeve. One careful maneuver up over her head and it was gone, dropped into a spare evidence bag. “No, Maggie, I’m sorry,” she said softly, shaking her head. “I know that you’re genuinely trying to help and I shouldn’t yell at you for that.”

Maggie smiled, reaching over to lift Alex’s gaze up from the ground. “Hey now,” she said. “You’re only human. It happens to the best of us. Even superheroes.” She looked around and hastily withdrew her hand, gesturing to the clean t-shirt that Alex had tucked into the belt of her pants. “Let’s get you dressed so you can go home and put some ice on that shoulder.” 

Feeling a little better in a clean shirt, Alex walked back to where Hank was standing lookout near the car. “Let’s get you home, Danvers,” he said, opening the door for her. “Let me just finish up with the good detective here and we’ll be on our way.”

Alex sank down in the car seat, only distantly curious what they had to talk about. She pulled out her phone to see four texts from Kara, each one with more worried emojis than the last.

_Fell on my shoulder out in the field. I’m fine. Hank’s going to drop me off at my place on his way back so I can clean up and get some ice on it._

_You sure? I could be there in a_

Alex squinted at the emojis at the end of Kara’s sentence but couldn’t put them together into reasonable words for the life of her.

_Faster than a train with gas?_

_Har har. I was trying to say faster than a speeding bullet train. See the sloped nose? Not my greatest literary effort, but I figured why does Clark get all the catchphrase fun?_

_Ah, that does make more sense. No, no gassy trains needed. You know that Hank wouldn’t let me get away with not coming in if it was serious. You have that big deadline tomorrow. I’ll be fine._

_Okay, well if that ice pack doesn’t work I know a girl with great control of her freeze breath powers. No human popsicles this time._

_Thanks Kara. Talk to you tomorrow. I’ll probably crash when I get home._

Alex put down her phone and leaned back against the headrest. Getting cleaned up and then passing out on her bed sounded sublime.

The sound of the driver’s door shutting would have made her jump if she hadn’t been buckled in.

“Everything okay out there?” Alex asked.

“Just keeping the good folks at the NCPD in the loop,” Hank explained. “At least as much as we can tell them.”

Something in his voice didn’t quite match his words, but Alex didn’t have the energy to question it.

********

Alex leaned back into the couch, letting the ice pack cushion her shoulder. The ibuprofen was doing a decent job of dulling the pain that had flared up now that she was home alone with nothing to distract her. As tired as she felt, she didn’t feel like sleeping yet. She curled her hands around a mug of tea, inhaling the fruity scents of the winterberry blend. Tea wasn’t normally her first, second, or even third choice of beverage, but alcohol and even mild pain medication don’t mix well. She was nearly settled when she heard a series of soft knocks at the door. “Kara,” she grumbled, getting up to open the door. “I told you I’d be fine. Though I’m surprised you didn’t–”

“Not Kara,” Maggie said, holding up a plastic bag.

“Maggie,” Alex said, waving her inside. “I just...you know...my sister heard about what happened and even though I told her I’m fine I thought she might show up anyway.” She retreated back to the couch and the safety of her tea. Part of her felt that she should be annoyed that Maggie had invaded her personal space when she was already feeling vulnerable (even just from today), but the louder part of her said to hell with that. Whether enough time had passed or not, she refused to feel foolish anymore today. They were adults. They had been and could continue to be friends.

Alex looked up at the sound of a chair scraping the floor. She’d been so absorbed in convincing herself (or trying to) that she hadn’t noticed Maggie sit down, absent the bag she had brought with her.

“I figured it was best to put the ice cream in the freezer right away” Maggie explained. She must have noticed the puzzled look on Alex’s face as she went on, “I’ve always figured that soup’s for an illness, and ice cream’s for an injury. Regardless, Hank asked me to stop by and check on you, just to make sure that you hadn’t tried to reach for something in the shower and further injured your shoulder.” She shrugged and added, “Well he didn’t say that exactly. I believe his words were ‘just in case’.” She cocked her head, giving Alex a curious look. “Is he the one who told your sister and that’s why you expected her at the door?”

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Alex offered as a vague explanation. 

Maggie’s eyes narrowed slightly at that lack of an answer. They relaxed back into a neutral expression as she continued, “Well what was I going to tell him other than ‘Yes’, even if I didn’t care. I know you’re not exactly keen on being around me right now, but I do care.”

Alex tore her eyes from Maggie’s gaze and looked down, catching Maggie’s right arm hovering as if she’d wanted to reach out and rest her hand comfortingly on Alex’s knee. 

“Anyhow, how’s the shoulder?” Maggie asked with a smile so wide and cheery that it seemed out of place when asking after an injured person’s health.

Alex recognized the obvious attempt to change the tone of the conversation and followed along gratefully. “Well it would be better if I hadn’t tripped over my own two feet and fallen on it,” she acknowledged, “But the ice and ibuprofen are helping.”

“If it helps,” Maggie offered, “I think everyone’s got a story like that.” 

“I suppose,” Alex agreed. “Doesn’t make me feel any less of an ass for slipping and falling flat on my back at a crime scene.”

“Have I ever told you what happened during my first year as a cop?” Maggie asked, shaking her head at the memory.

“No…” Alex said, tentatively curious where the story was heading.

“We had a summer softball league,” Maggie recounted, “Which ended up being kind of awful because of the heatwave that summer, but I figured, hey, here’s my chance as a new cop to show off my softball skills and maybe leave a good impression on the department along the way. We’d made it all the way to the league championship and were playing against a team of, believe it or not, science professors. I’d gotten a pretty good reputation for my base running and my plays in clutch situations, so as I came up first in the bottom of the seventh, tie game, people were feeling pretty okay about our odds. And I felt pretty fucking great when I hit a triple. Sure a homer to win the game would have been sweeter, but I wasn’t complaining.”

Alex smiled as she envisioned Maggie being a badass on the diamond.

“With two outs to play with and me on third, the next person came up and laid down a nearly perfect bunt,” Maggie continued, mimicking the gesture of swinging the bat. “A little short of an easy sacrifice, but everyone on our bench was screaming at me to run. I was what felt like inches from home when I tripped. I tumbled and landed with my feet square on home plate. I’m sure it was only a couple of seconds but they were some of the longest seconds of my life. I regained my bearings just as I heard the ump shout, ‘Safe!’, and also just in time to hear an enormous rip.”

“Oh no,” Alex whispered in horror, seeing where this was going.

“Yep,” Maggie confirmed. “My pants had split right open, and unfortunately it was laundry day so I was wearing a pair of underwear I’d gotten as a joke, with those little mushrooms from the Mario games on them.” 

Alex had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at an embarrassing situation even though Maggie seemed pretty comfortable retelling the story. “Wow,” she managed to get out.

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed. “Luckily only a few people saw before a colleague tossed me a pair of track pants from her gym bag, but despite my skill in and on the field it took forever for people to stop saying ‘It’s a Mario!’ when I’d walk by. Not where my superiors could hear of course. It was all in good fun though. Definitely small potatoes compared to some of the stuff I heard growing up, so I figured I might as well own it.” She shot Alex an encouraging look and finished with, “I know every situation is different, but that’s my story.”

“I guess I’m glad that only a couple of people saw me,” Alex said. “And people that I trust at that.”

“And you’re not likely to get a good nickname out of that,” Maggie pointed out with a gently teasing smile. “What could we call you that’s even remotely clever? And really, that would be adding insult to injury.”

“Good point,” Alex reflected, pausing for a moment but unable to come up with anything. “Though I’m sure Winn would try if he knew.”

“Maybe…” Maggie started, her face screwed up in concentration. “Nope, never mind.”

“In any case,” Alex said, eager to not give Maggie any more time to dwell on it, “While I’m sure I’ll hear about it tomorrow, have you heard anything new about the case?”

“They’re still figuring out the details,” Maggie told her, “But apparently the suspect they apprehended was actually the victim, who was attacked by the owner of that storage facility. There was something about his alien blood having a different coagulation factor or something, but no one has a clue yet what the clothes were about. They’re still trying to find the owner that attacked the guy.”

“I wish I could say this is the weirdest case I’ve ever worked on,” Alex muttered.

A silence lingered in the room, broken only by Alex’s occasional sip of tea and Maggie tapping her fingers against the arm of the chair.

“Alex,” Maggie blurted out all of a sudden. “Are we okay?”

“I don’t understand,” Alex said slowly, staring at her mug as she let herself speak freely for the first time in a while, “But I can’t ignore you even if I wanted to. Yes, I think we’re okay.”

“You’re just starting to understand that part of you,” Maggie explained, echoing Alex’s words. “And that’s perfectly valid, but it wouldn’t be fair to either of us for you to pin all your expectations and experiences on me. I won’t insult you by suggesting that it’s just because we’re already close, but what if your interest in me is driven by the force of all the emotions coursing through you right now? The newness of it all, well that will die down even if nothing else will, and where will that leave the both of us? We’ll both be emotionally invested beyond our friendship in something that may have been a flash in the pan.”

Maggie let out a quiet snort. “It’s not that I’m not tempted,” she continued, her voice taking on a deeper husky tone. “God you’d have to be blind not to be tempted.” She shook her head as if the force could remove whatever thoughts were filling it. “But,” she started, “But...I guess what I’m trying to say is, well, does anyone even say ‘go sow your wild oats’ anymore?”

“I don’t think so,” Alex answered on autopilot, distracted by the implication that she may have been wrong to assume that Maggie wasn’t attracted to her. “Particularly not for women.”

“Well it’s the 21st century, we’re bringing it back,” Maggie proclaimed, not noticing Alex’s distraction. 

Alex tried to put herself in Maggie’s shoes, seeing things as someone who had clearly been burned before. She was an expert at compartmentalizing to shut off the possibility of emotional pain so she really couldn’t fault Maggie for that. She didn’t quite feel ready to do that herself, but she could at least enjoy their friendship in the meantime.  


“While I’m not saying that anything will happen in the future, how about we give this time then?” Maggie suggested. “You can count on my friendship for support for many things, but this is one area that, for better or worse, you kind of have to figure out for yourself.”

“I suppose it will get easier,” Alex said, trying to convince herself.

“So we’re agreed?” Maggie asked.

“Agreed,” Alex replied. She wasn’t sure that time would make a difference, but for Maggie’s sake she was willing to give it a shot.


End file.
